Hands-on Development Strategies in a Content-Centered Context for Young and Adult Learners with Poor Basic Skills in Literacy and Numeracy Participants: Országos Tranzitfoglalkoztatási Egyesület - Debrecen, Hungary Klaipeda State College - Klaipeda, Lithuania Teachers Training Center - Tulcea, Romania C.I.F.P. Medina del Campo - Medina del Campo, Spain Edirne Teknik ve Endüstri Veslek Lisesi - Edirne, Turkey In Europe, approximately 20% of the young generation is not equipped with the necessary basic skills in literacy and numeracy. Moreover, 25 % of European adults has low literacy and numeracy skills (http://ec.europa.eu/education/policy/school/math_en.htm ). The five countries involved in this project face a common problem. As it can be seen in the results of PISA 2012 (http://www.oecd.org/pisa) all participant countries’ performance in mathematics, reading and science remains below the OECD average. Moreover, three of them are significantly below the OECD average in creative problem solving (there are no data about Lithuania and Romania). A thorough analysis of research results from all over the world revealed that the basic problem is the absence of the preconditions for successful acquisition, the lack of critical skills in literacy as well as in numeracy. Researches point out that developing literacy and numeracy skills through teaching content can be effective (more details: in the next question). (Center for Research on Learning and Instruction, http://www.edu.u-szeged.hu/ok/?q=en/content/books) For this reason, our approach to the reduction in the number of low-skilled young and adults is quite new, however it is scientifically-based. First step (6 months): We make clear the scientific basis of our job for teachers: - the reading acquisition framework - the numeracy acquisition framework - neuroscientific basis of reading, writing and calculating - how to embed teaching of literacy and numeracy skills in different subjects Using the above mentioned scientific achievements we prepare an easy-to-understand summary of their findings. We also briefly explain why it is the basis of our method. This handbook aims to be easily understood by teachers. Second step (18 months) At the end of this step we will hand over an exercise book. It will consist in 1.500 exercises of literacy and numeracy aiming to be used in regular classroom by teachers without any special degree in learning difficulties and working with learners older than 14 years. All of these exercises will be sample activities, frameworks or tools that can be easily filled in with subject related content according to teacher’s demand. All of these exercices will be ready to use in classroom as well as individually. Third step (10 months – a whole school year): We implement these innovations in different processes in the field of education. Spain: in classes with students at risk of early school leaving in Lower Compulsory Secondary Education Turkey: in classes with students at risk of early school leaving in vocational education Lithuania: in classes with students with learning problems in higher education Hungary: one-to-one tutoring with students at risk of early school leaving or with learning problems and remedial teaching course for students with similar profile. Meanwhile, the Teachers’ Training Centre in Romania leads a face-to-face and an online teacher training for testing how to train teachers in this field. At the end of this process they accredit this course continuously revised during the test period. Fourth step (2 months) We will summarize our new and progressive practices and exercises in an open educational resource to be used by any teacher working with students with learning difficulties and older than 14-16 years. This material will consist in: - a handbook containing the summary of scientific basis of this concept - 1.500 sample exercises and frameworks for teaching literacy and numeracy skills in a content-centered way - a guide with hands-on practices for demonstrating how to implement these exercises into the classroom work or tutoring without changing the school curriculum. - a teacher training curriculum in Romanian and in English
Hands-on Development Strategies in a Content-Centered Context for Young and Adult Learners with Poor Basic Skills in Literacy and Numeracy Participants: Országos Tranzitfoglalkoztatási Egyesület - Debrecen, Hungary Klaipeda State College - Klaipeda, Lithuania Teachers Training Center - Tulcea, Romania C.I.F.P. Medina del Campo - Medina del Campo, Spain Edirne Teknik ve Endüstri Veslek Lisesi - Edirne, Turkey In Europe, approximately 20% of the young generation is not equipped with the necessary basic skills in literacy and numeracy. Moreover, 25 % of European adults has low literacy and numeracy skills (http://ec.europa.eu/education/policy/school/math_en.htm ). The five countries involved in this project face a common problem. As it can be seen in the results of PISA 2012 (http://www.oecd.org/pisa) all participant countries’ performance in mathematics, reading and science remains below the OECD average. Moreover, three of them are significantly below the OECD average in creative problem solving (there are no data about Lithuania and Romania). A thorough analysis of research results from all over the world revealed that the basic problem is the absence of the preconditions for successful acquisition, the lack of critical skills in literacy as well as in numeracy. Researches point out that developing literacy and numeracy skills through teaching content can be effective (more details: in the next question). (Center for Research on Learning and Instruction, http://www.edu.u-szeged.hu/ok/?q=en/content/books) adultbasicskills.wordpress.com: For the above mentioned reason, our approach to the reduction in the number of low-skilled young and adults is quite new, however it is scientifically-based. We made clear the scientific basis of our job for teachers: - the reading acquisition framework - the numeracy acquisition framework - neuroscientific basis of reading, writing and calculating - how to embed teaching of literacy and numeracy skills in different subjects The result is an interactive or downloadable online magazine with tests, quizzes, links to external pages (our blog or homepage), excerpt of the articles and link to the whole documents. With this solution the readers can have access to a shortened form of the whole document and can have access to each part of it according to their priorities. adultbasicskills.com: Based on the scientific basis summarized in the first intellectual output, we have worked out a large set of 1.500 offline and online exercises, tools and framework of useful types of exercises, aiming at the following objectives: - these methods and exercises can be used by teachers of any subjects - where it is applicable different levels of a type of exercise have been elaborated - we included templates as well as elaborated tools (cards, examples) for many exercises aiming at ease the teachers’ task in preparing for class Di We included 40 videos in the catalogue. All of them are available not only in English but in Spanish and the majority of them available in Hungarian as well. Many exercises have been translated in Spanish and/or in Hungarian and all of them are directly available from the homepage, when the user clicks on the Spanish or Hungarian flag icon. http://www.slke.org/campus.virtual.3.0/panel-de-control-del-campus/acceso-al-campus/29-im-possible-strategies-for-young-and-adult-learners-with-poor-basic-skills/preview.html: The third intellectual output was a teacher training curriculum in English and in Romanian. Apart from preparing these curricula the activity was to organize a face-to-face training for Romanian teachers and an online training in English for any teachers from Europe. These teacher training curricula summarized all that we want to hand over to teachers (scientifical basis, methods, exercises, tools, guideance for being able to use these materials.) They consist in theoretical and practical parts. As some specific steps can support content teachers when they integrate literacy instruction into their everyday teaching, we implemented the next topics in our training programmes: - Train teachers that they should have a clear and consistent message about their roles and responsibilities as they relate to literacy instruction - Give teachers initial and ongoing professional development in vocabulary, comprehension and numeracy support - Help teachers in adapting literacy and numeracy strategies to meet the unique needs of their content areas - Give content teachers incentives, and appropriate tools for incorporating reading, writing and numeracy instruction.